Name: How to Roast and Bake Fish
Ingredients: 1 whole fish; ½ cup wine or cider; ¼ cup vinegar; a few oysters (fresh or pickled), chopped; 1 teaspoon ketchup or soy sauce; 1 tablespoon butter, coated with flour; fried bread for garnish; sliced lemon for garnish

Why it works: Butter and bread are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 27,232 recipes. Both carry delta-decalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓

How to Roast and Bake Fish

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Bake the fish

Preheat the oven to 400°F (200°C).
Bake the fish until sufficiently cooked.

Make the oyster sauce

Pour the baking liquid into a saucepan.
Add wine or cider, vinegar, and chopped oysters.
Stir in ketchup or soy sauce and butter.
Keep stirring until it boils, then pour over the fish.

Garnish and serve

Garnish with fried bread and sliced lemon.

Recipe from a historical cookbook (Internet Archive).

Transcribed from a scanned cookbook and modernised for today's kitchens. Where the book gave no heat or time, or said "a moderate oven", the temperatures and times here may be modern equivalents rather than the book's own figures.

Explore the science

The flavor team

The pairs that carry this dish. Each one is judged two ways: how much their aromas overlap, and how often cooks already put them together.

Butter + breadtop 7% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together27,232 recipes

Shared aroma: delta-decalactone (sweet, creamy).
Fish + oystertop 9% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together496 recipes

Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).
Fish + breadtop 10% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together1,668 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-undecenal (sweet).
Fish + buttertop 12% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together4,488 recipes

Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).
Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together124,287 recipes

Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Butter and flour barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Oysters: Provide the briny, savory flavor that defines the sauce.
Wine or cider: Adds acidity and body to the liquid that becomes the sauce.
Vinegar: Adds sharp acidity that brightens the sauce and balances the butter.
Butter: Adds richness and, with flour, thickens and gives the sauce a smooth texture.
Ketchup or soy sauce: Adds savory depth and color to the sauce.

The step that matters

Keep stirring until it boils. Flour-coated butter thickens only when the sauce comes to a boil while being stirred. Stirring prevents lumps and scorching on the pan bottom, giving a smooth sauce.

“What each ingredient does” and “The step that matters” were written by Claude from this recipe’s own method and reviewed in samples by CompKitchen.

Brown Bread461 recipes

Lemon Sauce236 recipes

Fried Fish120 recipes

Fish Croquettes81 recipes

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How to Roast and Bake Fish